Odessa Greytower
"Lady Odessa Vorkin? There is no such person. No, I am Odessa Greytower, Margravine of Yshpyrre and High Queen of The Scourge. And you, gentlemen, are about to bend a knee." ''- Odessa delivers an ultimatum'' Personality Odessa's demeanor is strongly indicative of her noble upbringing, but it also shares the same unsettling aspect as her scarred face. At a first impression, she seems haughty, arrogant, and condescending. Her royal bearing permits only silence and sarcasm in most company. Most people are content with only this understanding of her, as to know the young queen any more intimately is often more disturbing than expected. Odessa's companions and retainers are familiar with a far more complex picture, including her insecurities and neuroses. The first quality any extended period of time in Odessa's company will reveal is her intense admiration for violence and cruelty. Odessa herself is sadistic and remorseless, killing at a whim and often laughing outright as she cuts down her enemies. A good way to enter her good graces is to demonstrate an equal appetite for bloodshed and power. She is also intensely vain, a quality at odds with her lingering deformity. She wears the scar as a badge of honor to conceal her inner rage at being cursed with such hideousness, and obsesses herself with fashion as a means of distracting from her face. In line with the traditions of her family, Odessa highly values promises and oathkeeping. Once a bargain has been struck, she will uphold it at any cost. While always willing to make arrangements to her own benefit, the cruel young noble has a strong sense of fair dealing and turns her nose up at scamming or haggling. This, combined with her somewhat privileged sense of finance, occasionally works to her detriment when negotiating payment for jobs or prices for stolen goods. Finally, Odessa is wildly paranoid. She feels herself constantly to be under attack by oppressive powers that would squash her family's kingdom, when in truth, most of the world is either unaware of--or indifferent towards--their existence. Moreover, she is perpetually on the lookout for spies and assassins in the employ of her younger sister, Leonora. While she is no longer wary of her identity being discovered, and indeed often announces herself in public, she fears the machinations of her younger sister more than any other force. Appearance Odessa is a tall and domineering young woman whose appearance is as deadly and alluring as her personality. She towers head and shoulders over most she encounters, and her physique is hardened by years of rigorous martial training. Something in her bearing echoes the litheness of a girl in her late teens, the regality of a young queen, but to look on her is to see only a pillar of taut and slender sinew. Owing in part to her life in the sunless waste of The Scourge, her sheltered royal upbringing in the fortress of Yshpyrre, and to her recently acquired status as something beyond'' '''''death, Odessa's skin is a pristine and milky white. It was wholly unscarred until she went into exile and began to adventure outside of her kingdom. Now, she bears the marks of her many brushes with death, and her brief foray into the same. Odessa's most striking feature is indeed the scar she bears from the blow that first killed her. The ogre's club tore off a fair portion of her face, and her return from the world of the dead did little to repair the damage. The gash on the left side of her face stretches all the way from her hairline to her mouth, marring her left eye and pulling her lip into a permanent snarl. The mark is preternaturally grisly, bearing the appearance of a constantly open wound, rather than a gradually healing scar. Odessa's one good eye is pale and icy blue, as it always has been, and menacing and incisive in its own right. Her other eye, however, is the stuff of nightmares. Buried amidst the scarring, it has no eyelid and peers constant and unblinking through an opaque white film. Only the lightest silhouette of her ice-blue iris is perciptible in the cloudy orb, and its milky glow contributes immensely to her terrifying countenance. Her ashy blonde hair is kept trimmed very short on the sides of her head. In between, it is barely long enough to be swept down over one eye. The part, usually on the left side, is now pushed back slightly by the gashes of Odessa's scar. The rest of her features are at the same time charmingly girlish and somehow menacing. The unbridled evil that is her birthright hides in the crinkle of her petite and pointed nose, the high shade of her round, rosy cheeks, and the turning up of her precious rounded chin. A paradoxical face, to say the least. Her right nostril is pierced with a small silver ring that contains a small black pearl. When choosing clothing, she favors anything styled in black and red (the colors of her house), cut to her figure but with a bit of regal flare. Currently, she travels in finely worked black chainmail over which she wears a flowing greatcoat of red and black brocade. See Also - The Mad Princesses